ICU to OB--new grad

Specialties Ob/Gyn

Published

Hello all! Im a new grad nurse in the MICU and was wondering if I made the right decision. I know all these feelings are normal and I've only been working since December I was just hoping for some advice going forward. I wouldn't leave before the year is up but honestly sometimes it's so bad I feel devastated. I can't bear to even say it out loud. Every time I come to work I basically make myself sick. It's not a happy/good time in my life currently (which is hard for me because I'm a happy person). I thought this was my dream job. I always loved maternity but feared that coming straight out of school to maternity it'd be difficult to be well rounded because it's such a specific specialty. Also, I recognize that ICU is a speciality but the thinking definitely more inclined towards the ICU preparing you for anything. Is this the blues? Should I give myself more time? Should I actively look into maternity starting now or focus on just being in this moment? I'd appreciate any advice. Thank you.

Amazing. I went to another hospital. Started fresh. I love love love it !

Nice! How was the transition from adult to maternity/babies?

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Specializes in ICU, trauma.

I can also speak to this personally; I worked in trauma ICU as a new grad, and I thought I loved it at first, until the stress started physically weighing on me. I wasn't sleeping or eating, and I was so stressed thinking about going to work that I would get physically sick. ICU is a scary environment, and even after a year when I felt that "click"

and felt for comfortable and confident, I still hated the environment (I'm a people person, and everyone there was vented/sedated, lots of death, crying families, etc :(. )

After 1.5 years, I moved to maternal/child where I do postpartum, NICU, peds, etc, (everything but L&D really because I hate it lol) and I have never looked back!

ICU definitely taught me a lot of skills and critical thinking that I find very useful in my work now, but I don't think I would ever go back.

I would suggest doing what you said and waiting out a year, but you can't force it if it's not where your heart is :) good luck in your decision!

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Are you off orientation and on your own yet?

For what it's worth, I went into newborn nursery as a new grad and it took months before I started to feel comfortable there. I can only imagine how long it might take for a specialty like ICU. I am sure whatever's going on in your personal life is not helping the situation but my first inclination is that, unless you are expected to do things that are extremely unsafe (I hope not!), try to stick it out a couple years. It takes time to transition from being a new grad into being a competent nurse and to feel like you know what you're doing. I've heard from several people in ICU environments, particularly, that they felt nervous/anxious to the point of feeling sick before each shift and would have to give themselves "pep talks" to be able to go in and do their job, so I think what you are feeling is pretty normal.

I recently tried to move from newborn nursery into a maternity (mother-baby and antepartum) unit and in a lot of ways felt like a new grad all over again! It would have helped me to go into an adult specialty out of school so that I'd have that foundation to fall back on in case of moving and having difficulty finding work (which was my situation when I took this last job). Whenever you do end up moving into OB nursing, you will probably have some of that feeling too! But for now--my advice is to focus on learning your current job, get comfortable (or reasonably so) with it, and once you've got a couple years under you (or at least a year), start looking at your next

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